Earlier this year, Philadelphia Eagles legend Brandon Graham partnered with beverage entrepreneur Ben Weiss to launch a new brand of zero-sugar hard tea. After a successful launch, Graham and Weiss then partnered with local artist Jordan Spector for a first-of-its-kind promotional release, known as the “Strip Sack Pack,” a series of collectible trading cards featuring Graham’s finest NFL moments and found exclusively inside cases of Crooked Tea.
To discuss this latest venture, Graham sat down with Metro, detailing how this partnership began, seeing his NFL career immortalized in these limited edition cards, and more.
Graham credits former NFL linebacker, Eagle and fellow Michigan alumnus Dhani Jones for orchestrating the early workings of this partnership. In his post-NFL career, Jones has achieved considerable business success in various ventures. From high-end bowtie sales to utilizing AI models to help companies increase customer engagement, Jones’ pursuits, which also include work as an author and philanthropist, are quite versatile, making him a great resource for Graham, who is still figuring out the finer details of his own path outside of playing football.
According to Graham, Jones met Weiss and introduced the two, and as Graham told Metro, the two “hit it off.”
“[Dhani] got me involved with Crooked tea. I tasted it. I was just loving the brand and what they stood for and what we were trying to do, trying to take sugar off the streets; have a better-for-you drink… We’ve just been building over the time that we’ve met, and it’s been so cool just interacting with them and just learning the beverage space and learning just how the grind is. I just jump right back into the grind of what I just left. So it’s comfortable for me. It was like a no-brainer after being with him and seeing how his work ethic is.”
That partnership saw early success with the launch of Crooked Tea back in May of this year, and has since evolved into this new collaborative promotion, the “Strip Sack Pack.”
The collection includes cards with artwork of the three “Flavor Heroes” that make up Crooked Tea, and a variety of limited-edition collectible trading cards, autographs, foils, and ultra-rare inserts, including one-of-one’s, Kelly Green Variants and rare unlisted “Immortal Trading Card Inserts,” many of which feature Graham and some of his signature moments over his 15 seasons in the NFL.
Each card in the Strip Sack Pack was designed by Philadelphia-based sports card artist Jordan Spector, who is renowned for his creative work. Graham and Spector had known each other previously, having been introduced by a mutual friend.
“We did one card together before, but then afterward, like this, a new project, it’s just like the chemistry, I trusted Jordan already, so I kind of just let him put his imagination to it. And I was like, ‘Man, you know the story.’ We talked a lot, talked a bunch about just me as a person, and got to hang out a little bit, a lot of times since then. I just trusted him on it.
“I love how he put it all together,” Graham said of working with Spector. “It was fun, because I was a part of the process. He would send me stuff, ‘How do you like this? How do you like that?’ And that’s how it kind of happened.”
Among the many cards one can collect from the Strip Sack Pack, Graham does have his favorite, a holographic card with the phrase “House of Crook,” which features the many characters from the Strip Sack Pack collection, including Brandon Graham sacking a bag of sugar. There are only 100 of those cards in circulation, making it one of the rarest cards in the collection.
For Graham, the opportunity to have not only his likeness, but also some of his brightest moments and greatest accomplishments, is almost funny when he looks back on his life.
“Man, I just sit back and laugh, not even laugh, but just sit back and just reminisce on what it was before we got here, and the grind to get there, it’s like a daily walk, you don’t even know what’s gonna happen on that field. You just know, right now, they say you stink. You’re doing this and that, and, man, that play happened, well, that season happened, because that’s when things started to turn for me and to make a play on Brady, man, another Michigan man at that, it’s crazy to have it being told in a story through the cards.
“I always wanted this day to come where I make a play like that, and I change the way people view me in the game, but man, now we’re telling stories with it, and I didn’t even realize it until you just said that it’s like, dang, telling them stories. It’s like, ‘Man, how’d we get here?’ So that’s why, if I could say anything to any kids coming up, it’s like perseverance, man, you got to stay focused on just what matters. Because sometimes there’s so many distractions. I know I jumped into some of those distractions. But luckily, it didn’t get me where it took all my attention off what I needed to do.
“Sometimes, when people say certain stuff to you, it was tough. Being young and just persevering, and controlling [what you can control] and putting your work in, like even what you do? Man, it’s a grind, but you know what your Super Bowl is. You know where you’re like, ‘Yeah, I got that.’ So telling this story, man, it’s special to me, for my kids. It’s definitely special for my kids to see that. You have to stay focused, even if it doesn’t start how you thought it should in the beginning, if you still believe in it and you want to do it, stay focused.”
This venture with Crooked Tea is just one of multiple ways Graham continues to make an impact outside of playing in the NFL. Graham recently attended a silent auction event at the Lebanon Expo Center in Lebanon County, speaking to attendees about the ways they can make an impact and the importance of serving the community. Throughout the summer and during this season, Graham has also remained with the Philadelphia Eagles in an unofficial capacity, working as a mentor and advisor for the team.
While he may not yet have a new singular next step in his career, Graham remains busy as ever, still on the grind, all the while focusing on his family first.
For more information and for the official Strip Sack Pack Checklist, visit crookedtea.com.
